Chapter
15
 

“What?!” Zoey shrieked, both fists landing in front of her on the small conference table like twin pistons. “Why me? I was terrible. Ellen,” Zoey turned, white-faced, to the young producer who sat across from her, “you even said so yourself. I was terrible.”

“Terrible apparently appealed to a lot of viewers.” Ellen picked a piece of paper off the top of a tall pile of similar white pages.

“‘Watching Zoey cook brought back memories of teaching my own daughter how to cook. I loved that show! When will she do it again?’”

Ellen reached for the next sheet and read, “‘Watching Zoey Enright cook is great theater. The most entertaining hour of the day. Oh—and the stainless steel pots I bought from her are gorgeous.’”

“And another. ‘After watching Zoey try to fry cheese, I bought the entire set of nonstick cookware. If it works for her, it will work for me.’”

“And that,” Ellen told her, “is why you’ll be doing the cooking shows from now on.”

“But doesn’t it matter that I hate it? That I’m no good at it at all?”

“No.” Ellen shrugged. “People loved watching you. Look.”

Ellen slid the stack of faxes and letters across the table to Zoey. “People from all over the country are sending you recipes. They’re sending you cooking tips. They love you, Zoey. They want to help you.”

“I get all the help I need from my friendly network of take-out establishments,” Zoey wailed. “Ellen, give this to CeCe. She loves to cook. Why, she made me some buffalo chili that knocked my socks off.” Zoey grabbed the producer’s arm, her voice dropping a few octaves. “And that’s not all. She makes great pastries. Ellen, she makes the most heavenly homemade cheese Danishes. The kind you like. With the strawberries on top of the cheese.”

“Save your breath, Zoey. You’re scheduled to start in two days.”

Zoey’s eyes narrowed. “Start what in two days?”

“Your new cooking show. It will run twice each week to start, Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon.”

Zoey looked to the heavens. “I don’t deserve this. I have tried to live a good life. . . .”

Ellen laughed out loud.

“And now you’re going to let others help you, Zoey. This will be a more interactive show than most of the ones we’ve done in the past. The viewing audience wants to feel as if they are cooking with you. Just think of all those sweet little old ladies watching you, clucking over your efforts, offering advice. Your cooking segments have made the viewers feel almost protective of you, Zoey. You’re bringing out their maternal instincts.”

“I have a mother, thank you very much. The last thing I need is several hundred thousand more.”

“You’ll love it, once you get into it.”

“I’ll hate every damned minute of it and you know it.”

“But I also know that on-screen, you will be the smiling, happy show host who is far too professional ever to let anyone suspect that she’d rather be in traction.”

“You really know just the right button to push, don’t you?” Zoey grumbled.

“Thanks, Zoey. I knew you’d come around. Now, what we’d like you to do is to look through these recipes that people have sent in to you and see which ones interest you. We’ve already had the product coordinators go through them and pull out the ones that you could use with products we already have available for this week’s shows. So if you want to cook a pasta dish, we’ll schedule the pasta cooker for that show.”

Zoey flipped through the stack of faxes, occasionally groaning. “No, I don’t do lamb. I will not cook anything that comes from anything that was once cute and fuzzy.”

“I didn’t know you were a vegetarian.”

“I’m not. I just don’t eat cute things.” She looked over another. “Yuck. Okra. Add that to the list. I will not do okra.”

Ellen made notes on a pad of white lined paper.

“This doesn’t look too bad,” Zoey murmured. “Hmmm. Chicken with fresh rosemary and tarragon.”

“Let me see that one.”

Zoey passed the recipe to Ellen.

“This one would be good. It uses both a frying pan and a baking dish, both of which we have in inventory and can be scheduled for this week. Okay, pick two more.”

“Two more? I have to cook three whole things in one show?” A horrified Zoey asked.

“Sure. You’re cooking lunch for the camera crew, did I forget to mention that?”

“Someone is going to have to eat this?”

“Yep.” Ellen grinned. “And it had better be good. You know how temperamental cameramen are. One bad meal and your good side will slip into the land that time forgot, never to be seen again.”

“I’ll have to take these home and practice,” Zoey whined.

“I’ll have someone call the people whose recipes you select and tell them the good news.” Ellen slid the more interesting recipes to one side. “Think of how excited these people will be to know that you will be cooking their recipes on national television. And we’ll invite them to call in during the show.”

“Oh, sure. Misery loves company.” Zoey pulled a second recipe from the tall stack and placed it on the “deserves another look” pile.

“Hey, for some of these people, this will be a really big thing. Please don’t forget that,” Ellen reminded her.

“I won’t. But promise me, if this is not a howling success, we’ll drop it sooner rather than later.”

“I promise.”

Much to Zoey’s amazement, her cooking hours were instantly and wildly popular.

“Doesn’t it figure?” She had grumbled to CeCe after a quick cup of coffee in the hosts’ lounge before Thursday’s show. “Someone up there has a very perverse sense of humor.”

“You could always complain to your buddy,” CeCe had laughed.

“What buddy?”

“The tall handsome one who moved into the big office on the second floor.” CeCe’s eyes twinkled. “I’ve seen him every morning this week, since I’ve been scheduled for the eight to eleven shift, and I must say, he is one fine sight first thing in the morning.”

Zoey, who had been thinking the same thing all week, groaned and said, “It wouldn’t help. I saw Ben yesterday and the first thing he said was how much he liked Tuesday’s show. That he never knew how entertaining it could be to watch someone fumble around in the kitchen—his words—and what a great sport I was for doing something I really didn’t like.” She slipped her sweater over her head and picked up her purse. “And besides, I couldn’t take advantage of our friendship that way. I couldn’t use Ben to influence the producers to give me only shows that I like. It wouldn’t be fair. Which is not to say that I haven’t been tempted. But I couldn’t do it.”

CeCe watched, an amused grin on her face, as Zoey stuffed the latest batch of faxed-in recipes into her briefcase. “Light reading for the weekend?”

“For next Tuesday’s show, Ellen wants a main course, a salad, and a dessert this time.” She smiled devilishly. “Do you think I could get away with sneaking in the leftovers from my brother’s engagement party?”

“Probably not. Anyway, you’ll be too busy dazzling the boss to be thinking about food.”

“Now, where would you get the idea—” Zoey began to protest weakly.

“Well, you said that he had been invited to the party. And since he has watched at least one of your shows from the set every day this week—with the cutest little grin on his face, I might add—I just naturally assumed that—”

“Really?” Pleased, Zoey blushed. “Ben has been in the studio?”

“Every day. Didn’t you know?”

“I saw him yesterday when I was doing that clothing show, but that was the only time.”

“Every day, my little chef-meister,” CeCe assured her. “And besides, when I was at your house on Tuesday night, your black dress was hanging on the bedroom door.”

“So?” Zoey asked innocently.

“In the right hands, that dress could be a lethal weapon.”

Zoey laughed and swung her bag over her shoulder, heading toward the door.

“Hey, Zoe,” CeCe called to her. “Don’t make the same mistake I did with the cowboy.”

“What was that?”

“Don’t let this one skate away.”

*  *  *

“Zoey, speed it up a little, will you?” Ellen’s voice pleaded into Zoey’s earpiece. “The carrots don’t need to be sculpted, just chopped. It’s stir-fry for the crew, Zoey. It won’t be photographed for the cover of Bon Appétit.”

Zoey smiled sweetly at the camera and said, “My producer thinks I’m not chopping quickly enough. But we know, don’t we”—she winked at the viewing audience somewhere out there—“what happens when we chop too quickly. We don’t want to bleed into the stir-fry. Oh, we have a call. Hello.”

“Hello, Zoey. I’m so happy to talk to you.”

“I’m happy to speak with you, too. What’s your name and where are you calling from?” Zoey pinned a hi, neighbor grin onto her face.

“My name is Evelyn and I’m calling from North Carolina.”

“Evelyn, are you calling in with a cook’s tip?”

“Well, I was watching you chop that onion and seeing your mascara run . . .”

Zoey flinched and peered into the monitor to see if she had raccoon eyes. She grabbed a paper towel and blotted away the telltale black circles.

“. . . and I wanted to tell you that, if you run that knife under cold water before you slice into the onion, it won’t make your eyes tear.”

Now she tells me.

“Really? Does that work?” Zoey tried to sound chipper.

“Oh, yes. Every time.”

“Well, thank you, Evelyn. I will add that to my list of things to remember. Thanks for calling in with that tip.”

“Oh, Zoey, I wanted to tell you that you are a dead ringer for someone I met on vacation last year in Maryland.”

“Really?” Zoey measured olive oil and slid it into the electric wok, the product she was selling, where it sizzled angrily and immediately began to smoke. “Oops. Too hot, I guess.”

“Turn the temperature down, Zoey,” Ellen sighed into Zoey’s ear.

“She could be your sister,” the caller continued.

“Well, then, give her my regards. And you have a good day, Evelyn.” Zoey glanced down at her cards, trying to figure out what to do next.

Slice chicken breasts.

“Okay. Now we slice up the chicken into thin strips and throw it into the wok, then we add the peppers and the onions. Or is it the other way, veggies first, then the chicken?” She flipped through her notes, frowning.

A chuckle drew her attention to the side of the set. Ben stood in the doorway, looking handsome and casual in khakis and a loose knit sweater the color of amber. Zoey flushed, and her hands began to rattle.

“Ah . . . I think we add the wok to the peppers first. I mean, the peppers to the onions. In the wok.”

“Zoey, I think the rice is burning,”

Ellen warned. “Ellen the producer says it’s check to time the rice.” Zoey muttered to the camera, momentarily flustered by Ben’s presence .

“Time to check the rice,” Ellen corrected her impatiently.

“That’s what I said.” Zoey turned to face Ellen who stood across the set from her. “And time to take another call.”

Ben leaned against the doorway to the set and shoved his hands into his pockets. He hadn’t meant to stop in every day on his way out to lunch, just occasionally. And he tried to convince himself that the fact that his visits to the set just happened to coincide with Zoey’s noontime show, well, that was nothing more than coincidence, wasn’t it? He smiled to himself, knowing that if Zoey’s show was switched to two in the afternoon, he’d probably find himself eating later than had recently become his habit. Only to himself could he admit that he had begun to look forward to these few minutes every day, when he could just watch her. She had grown into so beautiful a woman, and he regretted not having been around to have watched her metamorphose from her self-described gawky teen stage into the beauty she now was. He wished he had been there to take her to those dances she never got to go to, wished he had been her first date. Her first kiss. Her first lover.

Where had that come from?

He shook himself out of his reverie, grateful that she could not read his mind, that she would not know he’d thought of little else but her for the past week, since the night he had sat across from her at her little kitchen table and talked like the old friends they were.

And that’s all I am to her. An old friend. Nothing more. Best not to think beyond that. As soon as the foot is healed, I’ll be on my way back to England, whether to race or go into business with Tony. Either way, I’ll be leaving.

But friends, he acknowledged, was better than nothing.

Zoey turned unexpectedly and flashed him a smile when the promo shot for another segment began to run. He felt dazzled, the way he felt after a race when the photographers all aimed and shot at the same time. He returned the smile and waved, then left the set quietly, afraid to overstay his welcome. Returning to his office, he checked his phone messages absently, then glanced at the calendar. Nick’s engagement party was in three days.

He walked to the window and looked out at the flat expanse of turf that grew between the building and the two-lane country road beyond, where an Amish buggy, drawn by a single horse, trotted past at a nice clip. There were times when he could not help but envy what he perceived to be their simpler life. How much less complicated when the day-to-day living is reduced to a lower denominator. Rise early. Tend the animals. Tend the fields. Love your wife. Love your children.

He knew it was more complicated than that. The Amish way of life had its own brand of stress and its own problems. But sometimes, he thought, a simpler routine might be welcome. The Sunday paper had run an article about farms in the area where one could go and stay for a weekend or a week, or two weeks, sort of like bed-and-breakfasts with a twist—the twist being that the guests would take part in the normal activities of the farm. He mused momentarily about doing just that one of these days.

He could see himself, mucking out the barn and pitching hay. Riding the tractor, plowing the field in the spring. Harvesting the wheat at the end of summer. He’d be wearing one of those big black hats he’d seen the Amish men wear in the fields. And when he went back to the farmhouse for the noontime meal, it would be Zoey who would smile a greeting at him from her place at the stove in the big kitchen. She would be dressed in a homemade, loose-fitting dress of coarse dark blue cotton, a black apron tied around her slender waist, a black cap snug over her dark hair, which would be pinned back into a tight bun. Her eyes would sparkle and she would be humming as she set a plate piled high with chicken and wide noodles before him.

Of course, the chicken would most likely be as tasty as truck tires, and the noodles like glue. . . .

He laughed out loud at the very thought of it, then sobered somewhat, thinking there were worse ways a man could spend his life than living on his own land and raising a family with a woman like Zoey Enright.